10 Outdated Video Game Design Tropes That Must Die
3. Pandering Fan Service
There's nothing wrong with media reflecting the audience's healthy interest in sex, but it's also fair to say that video games don't have a particularly good track record when it comes to treating players - or women - with much respect.
The annals of gaming history are littered with titles that feature wildly, unnecessarily sexualised characters, for no other reason than to pander to horny nerds who, executives and designers believe, can be lured in with a giant pair of boobs.
Perhaps the ultimate instance of this trope is Lara Croft, whose gigantic triangular rack helped make her a pop-culture phenomenon, but mercifully, the recent reboot finally made her more realistically proportioned (and far less of an object).
But Lara Croft is far from an outlier.
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis kits Jill Valentine out in a tube top and skirt combo, Halo makes the character of Cortana needlessly sexy, the Batman: Arkham series takes exactly the path with Catwoman your gutter brain would expect, Heavy Rain features pointless shower nudity that adds nothing to the story, and so on.
The most prolific franchise offenders, however, are probably Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy, which indulge this trope at least a few times in every game.
The first Metal Gear Solid literally asks the player to watch Meryl's ass jiggle in order to figure out which soldier she's disguised as, while Metal Gear Solid 3 features countless suggestive glimpses at a scantily-clad Eva, and then Metal Gear Solid V goes fully off-the-rails with the skimpy-clothed Quiet, who is dressed as such for the dubious reason of absorbing nutrients through her skin. Hmmm.
As for Final Fantasy? Final Fantasy X had Lulu, whose watermelon-sized breasts were barely contained beneath a coat held up by a few belts, while Final Fantasy XV had Cindy, the beautiful mechanic who bore her cleavage at all times, no matter the possibility of spilling hot engine oil on her chest.
It's when practicality is sacrificed in favour of cringe-worthy skin-peddling that it becomes problematic, though it's also fair to say that some games are so about their sexiness that it's decidedly easier to tolerate - as in Dead or Alive, Soulcalibur and especially Bayonetta, which basically feels like a parody of over-sexed video games.
But in a medium that's still struggling to be taken seriously by a lot of the world's adults, it sure would be nice if developers didn't cynically assume we're all out-of-control horndogs who won't play a game unless it's full of sexy imagery.